This invention relates to devices for passenger protection systems of a vehicle.
In gas bag devices used as vehicle occupant restraint systems it generally is required to divert the gas flowing out of a gas generator in axial and/or radial direction into one or more particular directions, so that the gas can fill a gas bag uniformly and in a defined way. Furthermore, it generally is desirable that adjacent to the outflow openings of a gas generator the gas bag is not damaged by the outflowing gases.
For the solution of these problems it is known to introduce the gas flowing out of a gas generator into a gas bag by using a gas conducting element acting as mass flow distributor. It is known to farm such a gas conducting element as filling tube made of metal, as filling hose made of a variety of fabrics, as fabric diffusor or as rigid diffusor.
For attachment of a gas conducting element to a gas generator provided with a stay bolt it has been proposed to form a circular opening at the gas conducting element or a part connected with the same, into which a stay bolt of the gas generator is inserted. Such solutions are described in EP 1 954 534 B1, U.S. Pat. No. 7,597,351 B1, US 2009/0039627 A1 and US 2008/0007035 A1. However, they involve the disadvantage that for introducing the stay bolt into the circular opening, the gas conducting element and the gas generator must be tilted relative to each other or be moved relative to each other in transverse direction, which may be disadvantageous during assembly.
A generic device is known is known from the document DE 103 39 523 A1. For attachment of a gas conducting element to a gas generator provided with stay bolts, it is provided in this document to clamp the gas conducting element to a stay bolt. The clamping force is provided by an inherent resilience of the gas conducting element. This solution requires a particular configuration of the gas conducting element.